Author Archives: jill

Intersecting Lives Finally Connecting | Engagement session with Ellen and Fernando

Posted in Engagements | Tagged , , , , , , , on

These two walked in to my office and it was an instant connection. I had so much fun learning about their wedding plans, their families, favorite t.v. shows, and of course their love story.  I love finding out how people meet.  Their story starts at elementary school.  They both attended the same school and Fernando was a year ahead of Ellen. They never talked to each other even though he remembered her, she didn’t remember him.

He moved away and it wasn’t for years til he graduated from high school did their lives intersect again.  This time they actually did a “Hi” face to face but nothing really went from there except an occasional my space connecection.  As time went by, Ellen took a film class in college where she reconnected with a friend from middle school.  This person told her I have a guy friend you should hang out with, you guys would get along great.  You guessed it, it was Fernando.  After returning to California from New York and a couple of messages via my space they started hanging out.  What I love about this part of the story (must be my romantic side) is that they didn’t start out dating.  They really started a friendship.  Fernando would get off work late and the two of them would talk in to the wee hours of the morning.  Ellen shared they would star gaze for hours and just talk.  Eventually, it was a smooth transition and they just became a couple. It reminds me of the old saying two ships in the night but they finally connected. In fact, they don’t even remember an official day when they became a couple it just kind of happened.

Well after spending the day with them, photographing them, and learning more about these two people who are truly opposites, they just compliment each other.  They just have a real natural ease with each other and I’m looking forward to photographing their wedding and documenting just another chapter in their story. The last couple of photos were taken at the school where their lives first intertwined and I believe where the journey all started.  If you love their photos or their story leave them a little love below to let them know you stopped by. I’m sure they can’t wait to hear from you.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

April Cover with Ingela Floral | Ceremony Magazine San Francisco

Posted in editorial, press, Vendors, Weddings on

I was so happy to be part of Ceremony magazines launch in to the San Francisco area.  They are a beautiful magazine out of Southern California and this year they introduced themselves to the bay area.  I had the opportunity to work with some great florist on the grounds of Villa Montalvo.  Better yet, It was great to see one of my shots of a beautiful bouquet by Ingela Floral.  It really is breathtaking I love the colors she used with the succulents.  Flower Divas also did an amazing job with their hues of peaches and cream.  Both had such different looks for the beautiful mansion in Saratoga. Please have a look at the photos below.  Last Ceremony just launched their new blog.  Have a look here

 

 

Today’s Bride Magazine | Our Editorial Country Creamery Shoot aka California Couture

Posted in editorial, inspiration, press, Weddings on

Just about a week ago we had a chance to celebrate the launch of the new look for San Francisco’s longest running bridal magazine Today’s Bride.  It was a wonderful evening held at the Winery SF on Treasure Island.  It was a great location and the view of the city was crystal clear and amazing.  MB Wedding Design and Events transformed the space in to a wonderful party venue. I had so much fun catching up with friends from all over the bay area.

This year along with Tia Reagan of Freebird Productions, I had the honor of shooting an editorial for Today’s Bride Magazine. The shoot started like you would imagine on a dairy farm in Petaluma, too early according to my clock.  Yes we were up before the rooster crowed but, what was so exciting for us was that the morning shot came out almost exactly like we had envisioned with a beautiful morning misty fog kind of feel. (If only the rays of light could of worked it’s way through it would of been a perfect dream).  Yet, we loved it anyway and the first shot set the tone for the rest of the day as we attacked the beautiful dresses that we would be featuring.

We were fortunate to work with some of the best in the wedding industry when putting our shoot together.  Most of the beautiful dresses you see were borrowed from Gabrielle’s Bridal Atelier in Campbell with the exception of the very first dress in the misty morning fog. This dress was from a very talented designer in San Francisco,  Amy Kuschel. I really enjoyed working with both shops they were so accomodating and friendly. Twigs and Honey, one of my favorite head peace designers, supplied many of the over the top adorable headpieces. Flower Divas  out did themselves with the beautiful and country flower bouquets while, Really Bad Kitty on etsy did an amazing job on the farm animal broache and button bouquet.  The amazingly cute and fresh models Tucker and Annette were from Scout Model and Talent Agency out of San Francisco. They were so amazing together you never would of guessed they weren’t a real couple.  Last, one of our favorites,  Luke Goodman Cinematography filmed the video of our day.  It was a great team and couldn’t be more pleased with the results.  Below is the video and to see more of the photographs from this shoot visit Today’s Bride online, pick up a copy of the magazine, or there is more to view on my website under Editorial.

 

 

The amazing video by Luke Goodman Cinematography

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opening Day for Spring | LaCrosse and Baseball begin

Posted in Personal on

It doesn’t matter what the calendar says, but for the Johnson’s this weekend Spring started.  It was a weekend packed full of opening days for little league and lacrosse.  People always ask me what I do on weekends when I’m not shooting.  Well below you get a little view in to my world and one of the many ways my weekends are spent. It’s being the cheerleader of my two very talented boys.  Go A’s, go Chiefs!

New Wedding, Engagement, and Boudoir site is live| Leap Year Tradition

Posted in Boudoir "Girly" Sessions, Engagements, Personal, press, Uncategorized, Weddings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on

Well this is the year people! A year when you get that extra day to catch up on something.  You get an extra 24 hours that you don’t normally have. I’d love to know what your going to do with your extra time.  What is leap day and why do we have it?  The geeky version of why we have leap year is so that the Gregorian Calender ( that most of the world uses) lines up properly with the earth’s rotation around the sun.  The more fun and romantic version is that women can propose to men.  Myths are that if a woman proposed to a man on Leap day he couldn’t say no.  It was a way for a woman to take control of her own love life and to help along those men who were sitting on the pot a little too long if you know what I mean.  This was a tradition that was pretty rampant until the 1960′s and free love took control of the world.

Well for me no matter why I’m thankful for the extra day. Here at Jill Johnson photography it is a very exciting Leap Day because we are launching the beginning of our new sites. Yes sites, you heard me correctly.  We will be launching our new wedding, engagement, and boudoir site today which can be found at www.jilljohnsonweddings.com.  Hopefully in the next week or two our new site www.jilljohnsonkids.com will be completed as well. (It is currently live as well as a teaser but is still under construction).  On top of all that our blog has been experiencing a new overhaul and will shine in it’s full glory with all it’s bells and whistles.  It has been very exciting and busy around here as we worked on creating a new  interactive and user friendly site.

Now is all of it complete?  No, but honestly, when is a site ever completed?  It is like a woman’s wardrobe constantly changing and evolving.  But I would love to point out some of the things about these new sites.  First of all you can still find all of my work at www.jillljohnsonphotography.com.  Here you’ll find a landing page that can direct you to the site you are most interested in.   It will also give you a sneak peak of some of our most recent gossip, news, and photos on the blog preview strip, and last but not least special flower buttons for you to share what you found with your friends, families, and social medias. Keep checking back because we are still adding more things to all of these sites as they evolve but for now we felt it was a great teaser.

The blog and the kid/creative portrait site will also have some of these great features as well as some other little tidbits that we’ll share when they are closer to completion.

Most of all I would love to thank all the people who have helped me put this all together.  It would have been released on the next leap year if not for their amazing help.  Pamela Francisco of Pamela Francisco Illustration, Eric at Big Folio, Ken Leslie (blog builder extraordinaire),Luke Goodman for the films, Andy Mark, and of course all my fellow photo peeps for their support and suggestions.

I hope you enjoy looking over the new look and I would love to hear what you think!  Stuff you love! Stuff you would still like to see! Suggestions will be taken in to consideration :) .  I love what I do and I”m so excited to be sharing just a little bit about my world.